The Anchoress

I hope someone, somewhere, is keeping count of all the times Al Gore has blocked the press from covering him. I recall he “taught a class” at Columbia University whereby the press was barred and if memory serves, students were warned not to talk to media. Then last year Gore closed the press to a speech he was giving, I can’t recall the particulars, but it was about Global Warming. Now, Gore is addressing the AIA and barring the press, again.

Considering how often this guy closes the door to the press, refuses to take part in debate before the press and dictates to the press what they should and should not cover according to his lights, I can’t understand why the folks in the MSM keep fawning over him. Gore is the antithesis of what they’re supposed to admire - openness, clarity, accessibility.

But he’s got the correct letter after his name, and I guess some in the press feel guilty that they did not give Gore the 10-15% advantage they so zealously (and blindly) pursued (and I believe achieved) for John Kerry.

And after all, Al Gore is not the only leading Democrat who picks and chooses what events the press may be permitted to cover, right Mrs. Clinton?

Al Gore’s not the only Democrat who will take drastic measures to suppress what they don’t like, right ABC?

Didn’t Howard Dean also just make some noise about how candidates should do their speaking without the press around?

Why yes, yes he did, indeed. Isn’t “secrecy” supposed to be bad? Isn’t one of the terrible evils of the Bush Administration that it’s so “secretive?” In the world of the mainstream press, the secrecy of something as vital as the NSA terrorist-wiretapping program is bad, but major political players closing events to media scrutiny is perfectly alright.

I guess secrecy is only bad when it’s not good. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

Ironically, the press loves to suggest that it’s the conservatives who are somehow trying to “stifle freedom of the press,” it’s the right who are blowing Tim Robbins’ “chill wind.”

The MSM wear convenient blinders; they keep themselves from noticing that the suppressive instinct continually flows from the left, where - as Ed Morrissey points out, the inability to control the narrative continues to cue the jackboot. As George Will writes it, perhaps the Fairness Doctrine should perhaps be re-named.

Maybe the folks in the press really do not understand who their friends are, after all. Maybe they’ve simply got the whole “friends/foe” thing mixed up, and not just in Iraq. As I wrote a while back, when some conservatives began eating their own over the illegal immigration questions, the enemy is whoever is trying to shut you up, even if they’re tacitly on the same side as you:

The fascist is whoever is trying to shut you up, shut you down, dis-employ you, silence you, cripple you or marginalize you for the crime of daring to fall out of step with the party and the conventional wisdom. Beware of them.

Who is trying to control the press and what they report, again? And why do they acquiesce? Who will guard the guardians, indeed?

WELCOME: CQ readers (and thanks, Ed!) While you’re here please look around as I’ve finally gotten back to work. We’re also talking about how the left is drinking the same hate-potion they did back in the day, St Catherine’s appreciation for manly men, George Tenet, the continual attempts by the academy to indoctrinate our youth, how Sheryl Crow really can save the world from Global Warming and the prayers God never refuses.

Related:
Media Whores and their Creators
All this Hillary Loyalty would be considered scary in W-land
Gore unhappy with Canada
Climate Change hits Mars